I glance back at him, surprised.
“He said all he could see was you,” Mark continues. “Even drunk. Even there. That didn’t stop him. It just made it worse afterward.”
I don’t say anything. I don’t need to. I walk back over to grab my wine. Take a sip.
“That was before the gala,” Alex says.
Of course it was.
“And then came Chuck,” I say.
Alex rolls his eyes. “Jesus Christ, Chuck.”
“He wouldn’t shut up,” Mark says. “About you. He'd seen you at dinner with Derek. He kept going on about how impressive you are. How unexpected.”
“How Derek must be enjoying the upgrade,” I add.
Alex grimaces. “Yeah. That.”
“He told him to shut the fuck up,” Mark says.
“Publicly,” Alex adds. “No smoothing it over. No smile.”
“That’s not like him,” I say quietly. That could damage both his reputation and his company.
“No,” Mark agrees. “He only does that when something actually matters.”
That means a lot more than I want it to.
“And Chuck joked about how long it would last,” Alex says.
I close my eyes.
“We handled Chuck,” Mark continues. “That won’t be a problem again.”
“I figured,” I say.
Silence stretches.
Alex finally says, “We didn’t come here to excuse him.”
Mark nods. “Or to ask you to fix anything.”
“Then why are you here,” I ask. “This isn’t easy for me either.”
Mark nods. “We know that. We do.”
Alex looks at me steadily. “But we’re here because you deserved to know this didn’t come from indifference. It came from fear. And it cost him more than he expected.”
I consider that.
“I’m not impressed,” I say.
“We know,” Mark says. “We just didn’t want you thinking it was what you thought it was. You mean something.”
I nod slowly.
They stand.
